Plague World (Ashley Parker Novel) (3 page)

Blerg.
Why my brain consistently came up with mental images like that, I knew not.

Oh, well, I’d wait until after I’d finished my job to page Dr. Freud.

Our kills were punctuated with the sound of Nathan’s rifle. He had some sort of fancy-ass firearm from his private collection. It could be dismantled and stored in its own plastic butt. With it he calmly and efficiently took out the incoming zeds without wasting a single round. If anything rattled Nathan, I had yet to see it.

Well, except Simone.

With every cut, every thrust, every kill, I pictured the asshole who had tried to shoot me, the one who “had a present for me.” He’d missed, thanks to Lil’s intervention, but the resulting ricochet damaged our team in a way that could never be repaired. He deserved the business end of my blade far more than the poor blue-rinse elder tottering in front of me.

Snick.
Sword point in.

Schlorp.
Sword withdrawn.

Sorry, Zombie Granny.

It didn’t take long for Tony and me to respectively smash, slice, and dice our way across the roof. Meanwhile, the number of zombies coming through the door on the far side trickled down to a slow stagger. Tony gave a war-whoop as he put down a zombie in scrubs, half of its face already missing before the rest of it was obliterated.

I took out a male zom wearing blood-crusted jeans and a blood-spattered white shirt that screamed GAP. It had several chunks of flesh missing from its neck and face. Maybe a son, visiting his sick father in the geriatric ward when the shit hit the fan.

I really needed to stop looking at their faces, and just do my job.

With this thought in my head, I heard footsteps behind me and spun around with my katana, using hip torque to generate enough momentum to do the job with one blow, just like any good executioner.

Instead of chopping through flesh and bone, the edge of my blade connected with a barrel of an M4, the impact sending painful shockwaves up my arms.

“Careful now,” an amused voice said. “I like my head where it is now.”

Crap.
Normally I would’ve been delighted that it was a living, breathing human being, but in this case, I think I’d have preferred another zombie.

Griffin—or Griff, as he liked to be called—had been one of the people already at the DZN lab when our group had arrived, bloodied and battered. The people at the lab had viewed our struggles on video, like some sort of sick reality show, yet done nothing to help. Including the guy standing in front of me. I resented him, even if he was another wild card. He wasn’t one of
our
group. And more importantly, he hadn’t helped when we needed it.

If not for the fact we’d been losing wild cards like Spinal Tap drummers, I’d have refused to work with him.

“Sorry,” I said, sounding anything but. “Next time you might want to announce yourself.”

He grinned down at me, his hazel eyes amused under ridiculously long lashes the same dark brown as his hair. He typified the whole gender unfairness bullshit illustrated best by peacocks. The males get the brilliant jewel-toned feathers, while the peahens get the drab brown colors. And for some reason, this particular peacock had been trailing his tail feathers in front of me ever since we’d been introduced.

“No worries,” Griff replied with an indefinable accent that spoke of foreign lands, but was probably just pretentious. “Worth it to see you in action.”

I stifled an undignified snort;
so
not buying what this dude was selling. Don’t get me wrong. Griff was definitely what most people would consider hot. Angular cheekbones, strong straight nose, and firm lips, the guy looked as if he should be gracing the cover of
Esquire
or
Details
.

Then again, Kai had been just as hot, and he knew it, but his hotness had been more… well, innocent, for lack of a better word. Irritating at times, but never predatory.

Griff had a self-awareness that saturated every gesture, every expression. His internal theme song was probably “Magic Man,” throbbing drumbeat and all.

I trusted him as much as I did rattlesnakes and frat boys.

“You actually do anything down there,” I asked, “or did you just watch the action on video?”

Griff held up his M4.

“Barrel’s hot.” He dropped it down low and added, “You’re welcome to touch it and see for yourself.”

“No thanks,” I said. “Not interested.”

“Afraid of getting burned?”

“Oh,
please
.” I snorted. I couldn’t help it. Then I gave him a quick once-over, noting the lack of gore and goo on his clothes and armor. “Awfully clean for a zombie killer, aren’t you?”

“Hey, I get the job done,” he said with a shrug. “I’m not interested in getting up close and personal with dead people.” Then he repaid my once-over with one of his own, albeit a slow, lingering travel up my body to my face. “Guess you don’t mind getting down and dirty.”

“Not with the zombies.”

Griff’s eyes narrowed just enough to tell me I’d scored. Gotta love a cheap and easy shot, right?

Tony joined me, Thor’s Wee Hammer dripping with zombie goo. I could feel the dislike for Griff emanating from him with the uncomplicated black-and-white emotional range of youth. He started to say something, then paused as what could have been the corpse of the Oldest Confederate Widow emerged from the roof access door. About six feet away, it didn’t moan, and its slipper-clad feet barely made a sound on the cement. Its mouth opened and closed, blackened tongue wriggling in the confines of its toothless gums.

“There’s a zombie behind you,” Tony said casually.

Griff rolled his eyes.

“Sure there is.”

His eyes stopped in mid-roll as a rotting hand clutched at his Kevlar-clad shoulder. The zombie’s gaping maw dripped black drool next to his face. To give him credit, though, Griff didn’t yell or jump in surprise. He just rammed the stock of his weapon into the zombie’s midsection, then spun around and delivered a blow to its head with enough force to smash the skull in.

“Guess you didn’t get the job done as good as you thought,” I observed.

“Better watch it next time, or you might get gummed to death.” Tony delivered the line totally deadpan, something I couldn’t have done if my life had depended on it.

“Funny,” Griff replied, unamused.

“Dude,” Tony said, “I tried to warn you.”

“Dude,” I echoed, “He totally did.”

Tony grinned. Then I jerked a thumb toward the open door as a zombie MD lurched into view, looking like it’d been used as a chew toy.

“Incoming.”

Griff looked at me with an odd little half-smile, and nodded as if reaching a conclusion. Then he turned and dispatched the zom with the same move as before. He made it look easy, almost balletic in its grace.

A blob of decaying brain matter landed on his sleeve. He eyed it with distaste, flicking it off with one finger. I fully expected him to start grooming himself like a cat. Instead he stepped into the roof access shed and peered down the stairs, turning back with a smile of satisfaction.

“
Now
it’s clear.”

Footsteps sounded on the stairs below.

“You sure about that, dude?” Tony asked.

The top of a helmeted head appeared and Gentry—one of
our
wild cards—appeared at the top of the stairs. He’d originally been a member of the ZTS (Zombie Tactical Squad), one of the more obscure branches of the military’s Special Forces. A lucky reaction to an
unlucky
encounter with a zombie in Redwood Grove had upgraded his status to that of a wild card.

Gentry grinned and gave us a thumbs up, his babyface making him look like a teenager playing soldier, instead of a sergeant in his twenties. I had to restrain myself from pinching his cheeks like my grandma used to do to me, when I was a dumpling-faced toddler. Somehow I didn’t think he’d appreciate it.

“Looking good, people!”

Griff smirked.

“Like I said… all clear.”

“So,” Indiana said. “What do you want to do first?” Brushing back his shoulder-length hair, he smiled suggestively at Hannah, who gave him a coy look from heavily lashed brown eyes as they walked away from the platform at Sheffield railway station.

In a red ruffled skirt, cream-colored peasant blouse and thick leather belt, Hannah looked like a fair-skinned steampunk gypsy. The leather belt had bits of brass thingees on it, gears and such. She wore a matching black leather collar similarly embellished, and black motorcycle boots. A cozy fleece shawl in a rich red completed the outfit.

The entire effect was guaranteed to turn him on.

“I thought I’d let you decide,” she said demurely, brushing a heavy lock of black hair out of her face.

“I have some ideas.” He noticed her struggling a bit with her overnight bag, and held out his hand. “Here, let me take that for you.”

She handed it over with a grateful smile. Once he hefted it, he understood why.

“Christ, this is heavy. What do you have in it, barbells?”

“You’ll find out.” She smiled again, only this time there was nothing coy about it.

Oooh, boy.

He’d met her at a mate’s fetish night a few weeks ago—the kind of party where most of the attendees were there to play. Hannah hadn’t played, but she’d watched with avid interest. Upon meeting Indiana, her first question hadn’t been the obvious, “Were your parents fans of the film then?” but rather, “Are you good with a whip?”

“Oh, yes,” he’d replied, and he’d asked for her email. She’d given it to him without hesitation. Over the next few days, as they’d gotten to know one another online, she’d shared her mobile number and several social media handles. Certain photos she’d posted on Facebook and her Twitter ID “kinkykitten1313” prompted him to invite her to Sheffield for the weekend.

He still wasn’t sure if she was a top or a bottom, but while Indiana tended to lean toward the submissive side of things—he did so love to be spanked—he wasn’t averse to administering a good paddling, as well.

Either way, the weekend promised to be a good one.

They reached the covered bridge over the tracks and headed toward the stairs that led from the station itself, sparsely populated at this relatively late hour. The few people who were there all seemed to be hoisting tissues, some of them looking like they’d be better off in hospital than thinking of traveling. A particularly ill-looking fellow about Indiana’s age erupted in a coughing fit as they passed him. Indiana winced as the man spat up a wad of black phlegm onto the station floor. He hoped Hannah hadn’t seen it.

Talk about a mood killer.

Indiana had seen postings from his American and Canadian pals about the severity of Walker’s Flu over there. He’d also read a recent article and seen some tweets about cases springing up in the UK, along with the usual crap about it being the next Black Death. He didn’t buy it, of course. Look what happened with H1N1 and SARS, after all. He hadn’t even bothered to get one of the flu shots that were being offered for free by Sheffield Hallam University.

But still, the amount of coughing and hacking going on made him anxious to get Hannah to relatively fresh air.

“I hope you don’t mind a bit of a walk,” he said, adjusting his pea coat as they reached the main exit. He held the door open for her. “I wanted to show you the glory that is Sheffield.”

“And your car’s in the garage.” She gave him a playful poke in the ribs. “I can see your Facebook wall.”

Indiana willed himself not to blush.

“So you can.”

“Never mind, I love walking.” She looped her arm through his. “And this is nice.”

They headed up the slope toward town, passing what Indiana’s mother liked to refer to as a “water feature” on their right, as well as a fountain and a series of waterfalls on their left.

“This is pretty.” Hannah looked around with a pleased smile, and gave his arm a little squeeze.

“It gets even prettier when we get into town,” Indiana assured her. Their current surroundings were modern and stark in the gray November weather.

They kept walking past the station parking lots to Sheaf Street, up the hill toward Sheffield City Centre.

“On our left,” Indiana intoned in his best poncy tour guide voice, “is the excellent independent Showcase Cinema. And that lovely grassy area contains the Sheffield Hallam University buildings, with the Engineering block in the background, as well as my old stomping grounds, back when I was a student.”

“Did you do a lot of stomping then?” Hannah asked innocently. “Or did you prefer to be stomped?”

“I could go either way,” Indiana answered with a straight face.

“Nice.” She smiled up at him.

Yeah, this is going to be a stellar weekend. Hell, maybe even more than that.
Indiana hoped so. He liked this girl. And while he wasn’t quite ready to settle down, he wasn’t averse to settling in to a relationship that could lead that way.

As long as the path was decorated with paddles and leather restraints.

Ahem.

They continued walking.

“And here you see the Mansfield, one of the oldest pubs in Sheffield—the oldest being the Old Queens Head.”

“That almost sounds naughty.”

Indiana grinned. “Did you want to stop in for a pint?”

The offer wasn’t entirely altruistic. He could use a break from lugging her overnight bag.

“Could we?” Hannah’s voice was eager. “I’d kill for a pint.”

“Your wish, m’lady, is my command.”

They headed toward the pub’s entrance, only to stop short as the door burst open and two women—a bleached blonde and a redhead—staggered out. Both were in their mid-twenties and dressed for a night out on the town in heels too high to be safe after a pint, let alone as many as they’d probably had. The redhead was bleeding copiously from a wound on her forearm and crying in great gulping sobs, while her friend patted her drunkenly on the shoulder.